"Jodoc, I'll be focussing on consuming the rest of the souls inhabiting my body. Please intervene if something happens during my absence," Luz told Jodoc out of the blue before closing his eyes.
"I'll isolate you from the rest if you go completely crazy," Jodoc assured him before leaving Luz's shoulder.
The latter nodded before locking all his chains together and making sure they restricted his movements, just in case it went south.
And so Luz's journey in his mental plane continued.
But to his surprise, he saw a few giants glowing in the darkness of the space.
"Wait, what the hell is going on??" cursed Luz.
'Stars/Souls with such intensity shouldn't exist here since the souls of the parasite are rather weak. Let's visit one of the stars and find what is going on.'
Luz made his way towards the nearest star to him, and it felt like eones before he reached it.
'Why can't I find any other soul? It feels as if I'm in a no man's land. Shouldn't this place be filled with souls?' Luz wondered as he got closer to the star.
But upon getting to it, everything became clear to him about what had happened. The princes somehow found out what Luz was doing and used the same method to gather power in his absence.
The strange thing, however, was: "Why are there only four giants in the distance, and why is one of them glowing stronger than the rest?"
While Luz was deep in his thoughts, the silent giant soul around one-fourth of Luz's size made his way towards him as fast as possible.
'Shit. Nonetheless, these five princes made it easier for me since they did most of the dirty work already, hehe.'
Luz, however, didn't anticipate that the parasite attacked him from strange angles, making it hard for him to attack or defend against it.
Annoyed, the former thought to himself: "Yeah, I got a bit rusty," as he tried to hit the prince with his attacks, but unfortunally he couldn't even land a single hit against it since the latter was too fast.
As more and more attacks came at him, Luz's mind was filled with seething pain. Each of the hits felt as if someone was hammering needles inside his brain as they chipped his soul piece by piece apart, driving him to the brink of madness.
At that point, it took him all the effort not to turn into an enraged being and to think clearly.
In the physical plane/reality, a bored parrot got jolted out of his thoughts by the sudden noises created by Luz's body trembling as someone under shook.
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"Fuck, What the hell am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to intervene, but I'm not even a doctor, nor have I any experience in that area??" wondered the parrot as it starred at Luz for a few minutes.
The chains clanked uncontrollably, and Luz's teeth rattled before the latter released a bone-chilling scream. At that point, Jodoc was willing to use a variety of spells to stop Luz, but to his surprise, Luz's body immediately slumped down, and the latter stopped all his movements.
"Yeah… I'm going to take some medic classes after leaving this god forbidden place. I'm not sure if I want to experience that too," muttered Jodoc to himself. He immediately summoned a paper and noted what was happening for Simon.
Back to the soul plane:
An enraged soul thought to himself: "Yeah, time to end it. I don't want to bear the pain any longer," as he planned his next attack.
The attacking parasite arrogance grew with each passing second as it saw how Luz had problems, even hitting him once. But what it didn't expect was that his 42nd attack would be its last attack. As it attacked Luz again, the former formed his body into a ball with a captivity.
The latter tried to swerve his direction in the last second, but unfortunally the prince was way too fast to stop and therefore crashed right into the cavity.
"Finally," Luz thought to himself, closing the captivity while shrinking his body more and more.
To his surprise, Luz got a transmission from the parasite telling him that he was willing to share information with him if he were to spare his life.
Luz stopped shrinking his body and asked the prince: "Tell me everything. If your answers satisfy me, I might reconsider killing you."
And so the latter told him everything that happened during his absence.
The paranoid prince, forced to the soul contract by group pressure, ordered some parasites to enter the cells, which stopped all communication with the hive. To the prince's surprise, it found out that these cells, or rather parasites inhabiting these cells, communicate only with each other while ignoring all signals from the rest.
With a stroke of luck and plot armor, the prince also found out how to end up in the soul plane. There he saw a massive giant soul, radiating energy from it as if it was a lighthouse while not even moving an inch. Knowing that this soul could only belong to the host, the prince felt fear for the first time in his life. Out of fear, he concluded that consuming the souls of his siblings that made up the hive was essential in surviving against the host. That's how the prince ended up fighting other souls with his life on the line before consuming them.
Unfortunally for him, it didn't take long before the rest of the princes with whom he was sharing a mana core found out that something was wrong. Not only have they lost control over more parasites, but one of them, in particular, grew a bit too strong compared to the rest. Therefore they grouped to force the latter to tell the truth, or the prince would die facing the wrath of four princes at once.
But the prince, forced into showing his cards, had a plan. Why not tell them that you will await them near the host's soul, and as they move in the direction, he could easily take one or two of them out.
Filled with greed, the rest of the princes moved towards the host's soul, only to see one of their former princes consumed by a different prince. In shock, they all fled in different directions, carving their territory, consuming as many souls as possible. That's how they ended up in a stalemate between each other, even though they were supposed to fight as a group against the host.
But strange things always happen. Who knew that even parasites belonging to the same hive could be more traitorous than humans.
Listening to the story, Luz felt happiness, knowing that the princes, stopped acting as a group.
"Interesting. I must thank you all for fighting against each other, but unfortunally you aren't of use to me anymore, hehehehe," Luz told the prince before squeezing its soul.
"Wait, wait, wait…" were the last words from the prince as its soul got consumed by Luz.
After consuming the prince's soul, Luz felt an unbearable pain from the memory overload since that one soul contained the memory of at least trillions of souls.